Tag: schematic

On April 9th, Lisa Chiapetta, a professor at Dominican University and Play-Well TEKnologies collaborated on a LEGO team building event at Play-Well Marin. Professor Chiapetta brought her Dominican University students together with working professionals in the Marin area to explore how they communicate, delegate, and lead. Lisa introduced some principles of LEGO Serious Play and then with Play-Well, they conducted various LEGO challenges. Lisa and Play-Well agree that play is a great way to learn about yourself, how you work with others, and how to determine your values. Here are some pictures from the event:

Sean earned a LEGO Bow Tie for one of our challenges.

Ideas are percolating at the workshop.

Some of the creativity and designs made were phenomenal, especially for many who haven’t played with LEGO in a while.

As an adult who plays with LEGO, an uncle of kids who play with LEGO and as someone who is part of an organization that teaches engineering concepts to kids using LEGO as the primary teaching medium, I completely disagree with you. In my experience, LEGO continues to expand the imaginations of kids all around the world.

Tablets, TV shows, and video games are constantly competing for a child’s attention. Surrounded by all this technology, we somehow have more children than ever before choosing to play with small pieces of plastic in a pretty similar way to what kids did back in the 1950’s. I’d consider that a win.

Sure, kids these days now have themed sets, from Lord of the Rings to Star Wars. But when I watch my 8-year-old nephew flying Harry Potter on a Ninjago Dragon to Hobbiton, I realize that he is still using his imagination. He just asked his grandfather to buy him a 2000-piece LEGO Simpsons House for Christmas, even though he has never watched The Simpsons. Why? Because the LEGO kit looks cool and seems challenging to build. Completing such a complex, big build will not only boost his building confidence, but teach him subtle building tricks like how to build an angled roof, which I never learned with my 80’s LEGO sets.

It’s true that, for a certain kind of kid, a bin of bricks by itself can be an amazing springboard for creativity. But that’s kind of like assuming that the Mona Lisa can be painted with a box of twelve crayons by any child with no prior experience in the arts. Sure, someone can do it. But there is more than one path to finding out just how creative you can be. For some kids, continuing down that path is easier when you have something really cool to show for all that hard work.

As adults and educators we know the skills, experiences and values that we want to share with children but part of what creates a life-long learnerand a well-rounded child is empowering them to discover those things on their own. That means that to a certain degree, we have to meet kids where they’re at and not send the message that the things they like are somehow wrong or bad. The truth is that kids love Super Heroes and Harry Potter and if we can use that love to foster an appreciation for science, engineering or learning in general, we absolutely should.

When you speak of kids having their creativity stifled, it ignores the fact that kids come to building with LEGO in a variety of ways. If you are trying to help them find their creative confidence to build, you need to know and embrace where they are coming from.

In our engineering classes, we get kids of all building persuasions. There are some kids who love to build a set and are adamant about leaving it on the shelf never to be touched. There are the kids who choose to build based on whatever pops into their heads. And we have seen kids who aren’t confident building at all. For all of these kids, as they build increasingly sophisticated projects over a 5-day camp, you can see their confidence and creativity getting stronger simply through the sheer act of building.

I’ve watched students in our classes start by simply making the projects we ask them to do. As soon as they have accomplished that task, they can get into the good stuff, where we provide open-ended building challenges for them to solve. Because of the small wins of building the easier projects, they are more willing to take on more difficult builds.

LEGO Sumerian Ziggurat built by students.

It’s easy to say that this or that thing just isn’t as good as it used to be. All the fear-driven articles we saw last year about the evolution of LEGO faces is a good example of that. I, like many, have a tendency to use the “kids these days…” argument when talking about popular toys. I really shouldn’t judge though, since I grew up in the 80’s, when some of the most popular toys were He-Man and My Little Pony. Talk about gender stereotypes. It’s gotten better. It’s far from perfect, but overall you have more kids building and playing. Isn’t that what we want?

As for LEGO Friends, we have seen kids who love it and kids who shy away from it. We have learned ourselves that we must include the whole rainbow in our teaching kits because despite what “society” tells us, all kids like all colors. This is a complicated issue, but again, you are getting more kids to build who otherwise might not. And where LEGO may have misstepped with some of the less than stellar LEGO sets of the 80’s and 90’s, they made up for it with some encouragement (I.e. LEGO Scientist).

Kids are still kids. Just like previous generations, they still play to create, to express themselves, and to solve problems. And there aren’t many toys out there that allow kids to do that anymore besides LEGO. That’s why I teach with this toy and not with others.

So to answer the questions posed in your article, what sort of adults will today’s children become? What sort of world will they create? And what are their toys actually doing to them?

My answer to that as an educator would be to tell someone who is worried to first just breathe and relax. My confidence in the future is reinforced everyday in the classes I see. Kids amaze me constantly by coming up with solutions to building challenges that I would have never come up with. They are just creative as kids of the past, if not more. They are curious about the world and want to be challenged.

Just like with any of us, that palpable, creative energy that children have for building just needs to be encouraged more. And LEGO plays a crucial role in helping to cultivate that. We witness kids building their futures worlds in our classes on a daily basis. If what they create in class is any indication of what the future may hold, the future is going to be pretty awesome.

Inventing a focus at University Lake School’s Lower School

First school in state to try new program

Students pick out supplies to help construct a gondola at University Lake School. The after-school program at the Lower School uses Legos to help students focus on engineering principles. Photo By Evan Frank

By Evan Frank

Nov. 28, 2014

University Lake School students at the Lower School love playing with Legos.

That’s for certain. Although they may not realize it just yet, but a new after-school program at the school is teaching them about engineering and at the same time, getting the students to become critical thinkers.

The program, in its first year, focuses on engineering principles by way of Legos. ULS, according to Jen Costa, communications specialist at the school, is the first and only school in Wisconsin to offer the program to students.

When Hollenbeck met Madeleine Gabor, a Chicago Area manager of Play-Well TEKnologies, she thought the program would fit perfectly with the Lower School’s theme of inventions this year.

So far the response from students in the after-school program is overwhelmingly positive. There are two groups: kindergarten through second grade and third through fourth that will participate in the six-week program.

Second-grader Richie Dallen felt the different projects challenged him at times, while he caught on more easily to others.

“My favorite part is when we play the games after we build,” Richie said.

The students have the chance to play games with their creations after the instruction and building stage is complete.

Having fun while learning

Like most students in the program, Richie has Legos at home and enjoys the process of building different structures and objects.

“Everybody likes Lego,” Lower School Head Adriana Hollenbeck said. “It’s a common language.”

During the program’s second session, students learned from Ray Cisneros, a play-well employee who leads the class, about a gondola lift and how to create one with Legos.

“We want them to get introduced to the basic concepts of engineering,” said Cisneros. “I think the problem is it’s easy to become disconnected with science and math because it’s so abstract, but we take Legos and basically take these concepts and they’re able to learn them while building.”

Cisneros said the goal is to have fun while learning basic concepts of engineering.

“In the back of their mind, they’re going to remember gravity, they’ll remember friction, they’ll play around with torque,” Cisneros said.

According to Gabor, play-well, a California-based company, will be in the Kettle Moraine School District in January 2015.

Hollenbeck was drawn to play-well’s motto “Dream It. Build It. Wreck It. Repeat,” because it matched ULS’s goal to have students be intellectually curious and original thinkers.

“When you talk about intellectual curiosity and original thinking, a lot of that comes from playing and exploring and making mistakes,” Hollenbeck said.

The after-school program has drawn a good amount of interest, according to Hollenbeck.

“We have a waiting list,” she said. “You can see how engaged (the students) are.”

Hollenbeck noted the school, in collaboration with The Hawkins Center, will host a conference in February called Cultivate the Scientist in Every Child.

This is also part of the push to get the students to be more innovative thinkers.

Each year, we are amazed by the creativity of some of the Halloween costumes that we see from our students and their parents. Check out this costume submitted by a parent last year.

How we play well on Halloween: https://playwelltek.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/this-is-how-we-play-well-on-halloween/

This year, we wanted to celebrate that creativity by having a Halloween Costume Contest. Post your Halloween costume on our Twitter Page, Facebook Page, or email it to jeff@play-well.org, and you could possibly win a Play-Well Halloween LEGO Bow Tie or LEGO Monsters Set.

At Play-Well, we always strive to provide the strongest, most academically enriching engineering classes and camps for your kids. We can only achieve this by receiving feedback from parents like you. So, we created a Play-Well Parent Feedback Survey.

“Your living room isn’t the only place to play with LEGOs. Across the country, there are attractions, classes, stores, conventions and other hotspots where kids can go bonkers for bricks. From LEGOLAND San Diego to the brand new flagship store in New York to a record-breaking museum in Ohio, we have the dish on the top places in the nation for LEGO activity. Click through our album to find out what’s near you — or where to plan your next vacation!”

Play-Well TEKnologies – Denver, Colorado. Brain gears will run well oiled over at Play-Well TEKnologies. This Denver classroom explores real-world concepts in physics, engineering and architecture by building bridges, skyscrapers, motorized cars and more. There’s even class that combines the world of Minecraft with LEGOs for an adventure that’s off-screen!

In approximately 6 hours and 53 minutes, using over 190,000 LEGO pieces, 447 local residents created a new record measuring in at 902.51 meters (2961 ft.). It was part of a charity fundraising event to raise awareness for a state-of-the-art special needs playground called the Rotary DreamCatcher Playground. This event coincide with the 50th anniversary of the city of Thousand Oaks. At 3:03 PM, we added the last chain link which put us over 902 meters. It was an amazing event that we will never forget. Check out some of the photos of the event below.

The first LEGO chain links were laid down by Alice at 8:08 AM. She was joining the parade to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the City of Thousand Oaks, but had time to build a few chains before then.

One of our builders, JJ, was able to lay in the LEGO bath. We eventually used all the LEGO bricks in the LEGO bath.

Here is more LEGO being shared, so we can complete this World Record LEGO Chain.

These kids have a system when making their LEGO chains.

Two builder focused as the build their LEGO chains in the LEGO bath.

All these chain links are ready to be taken over to the LEGO chain. 20 2×4 bricks made up the chain.

One of our builders, Colton, had been talking about this event all week. He was one of the first builders at the event in the morning.

This builder liked to get his chains done while sitting in a bucket of LEGO. The chain at this point measured over 450 meters. 106 meters shy of the record.

We are almost finished with the LEGO chain at this point. We constantly measured to chain to see how far we were from the record. And waited till the very end to reveal the result.

Here is some of the Play-Well staff that helped coordinate the building of the LEGO chain. Two amazing Play-Well staffers who helped out, Michael Sidebottom and James Castellano are missing from this picture, but are just as awesome.

We lined up all the participants to let them know what the result was. And the final result was….

902.51 meters, breaking the previous record by over 350 meters. It took approximately 6 hours and 53 minutes to do it. 447 people participated in this event over the course of the day.

We then attempted another World Record. All the residents cleaned up 190,000 LEGO bricks in the span of 10 minutes and 11 seconds. We don’t know if there was a record before then, but there should be one now.

Thanks everyone that participated in this amazing event. To see more pictures from the event, visit our Play-Well Facebook Page. If you’d like us to help your community break another LEGO® record, email Jeff at jeff@play-well.org.